course, the service isn't restricted to publisher listings. You'll find agent listings as
well, plus magazine listings and a library of useful articles.Yes, you can multiple-submit your query letter, and even your
proposal
Once you start marketing your proposal, you'll find that some agents and publishers
include words like "no multiple submissions" when they're telling authors how they
want to receive proposals. In other words, they want exclusivity. Unfortunately,
there's a big problem with this. The problem is time. Most agents and editors will take
a month or longer to evaluate your proposal. Some take as long as six months.
Considering that you may need to approach 20 to 30 editors and/ or publishers, you
could still be sending out your book three years from now. Professional writers ignore
these admonitions, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t eat.Sample Query Letter
What goes into a query letter? I've included a sample query letter that I've sent out,
and which garnered an agent contract immediately. You'll see that this letter is:-^ Short;^
-^ To the point.^
(^)
I could have spent a lot longer composing this letter --- I could have included a better
hook, and included the book's blurb. At the time, I sent it out however, I didn’t have
the time to spend on revisions. I'm including this plain-vanilla, so-so query letter here
for a reason. That is --- and I've found this to be true in 25 years of writing --- it's
important that you SHOW UP. In other words, while you might want each piece of
writing you send out to be perfect, or at least brilliant, sometimes you don’t have the
time. At those times, send it out anyway.
Get into the habit of treating your work with a certain amount of aplomb. That
is, even though it's not perfect, and you could make it better if you had the time and
energy, 90 per cent of the time what matters is that you send out your work. If you're
a closet perfectionist, as I am, this will be hard for you at first.